Foreign aid shift draws protests

Michelle Grattan, Vince Chadwick

THE government has promised that ''core payments'' to non-government agencies and funding for groups critical to humanitarian crisis will not be hit by the diversion of up to $375 million to support asylum seekers being processed in Australia.

As protests grew, a spokesman for Foreign Minister Bob Carr said there would be ''deferral or delay'' in some aid spending.

The opposition pointed out that Australia had made itself the third largest recipient of its own aid - after Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

The government claimed the diversion was not a ''cut'' and said the allocation of some funds to provide food, clothing and shelter for refugees was consistent with previous Australian government practice.

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Senator Carr's office said the detail of which areas would be affected was still to be worked out. It could not clarify what ''core'' funding for non-government bodies meant.

The ongoing funding for eight large non-government organisations is safe.

The organisations dealing with humanitarian crises that will be protected include the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Food Program and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The government said it was still committed to reaching an aid budget that was 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2016-17.

The opposition made it clear that it would not restore the money. Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop said a Coalition government would need to see the state of the nation's books before it could determine its priorities.

Asylum Seeker Resource Centre chief executive Kon Karapanagiotidis said his organisation was appalled by the move. He said unlike foreign aid, which supported education, clean drinking water and health services in developing countries, the cost of detaining refugees in Australia only did more harm.

''They are not investing anything. They are spending money to institutionalise and damage people, to make them suicidal and harm them for years to come.''

Human Rights Law Centre director Phil Lynch said the decision was ''deeply disappointing and misconceived''.

Children's aid body UNICEF Australia said the government had broken its promise and this would affect ''the lives of the world's poorest children''.

Labor MP Melissa Parke said: ''I find it depressing that cuts to foreign aid are often regarded as easy targets both here and in other developed countries.

''We're a wealthy developed country and we shouldn't be balancing our budget on the backs of the extreme poor.''